Source: http://cjonline.com/news/2012-01-20/carnival-themed-gala-aids-cancer-research
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Monday, January 23, 2012
Carnival-themed gala aids cancer research | CJOnline.com
[unable to retrieve full-text content]CJOnline.com is the website of the Topeka Capital-Journal newspaper. It's the Number One source of news, sports, weather and entertainment information, as well as cars, jobs and real estate advertising for the northeastern ...
Sunday, January 22, 2012
GM regains crown as world's top-selling automaker (Reuters)
DETROIT/TOKYO (Reuters) ? General Motors Co (GM.N) regained its title as the world's top-selling automaker in 2011, less than three years after its 2009 taxpayer-funded bankruptcy under the Obama administration.
The Detroit-based automaker's return to the top slot comes as Japanese rival and former No. 1 seller Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) slips in the rankings after an earthquake in Japan and deadly floods in Thailand hampered its production in 2011.
GM said it sold 9.026 million vehicles globally last year, up 7.6 percent from 2010.
Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE), the German company vying to become the world's largest carmaker, finished the year in second place with 8.16 million vehicles sold.
Toyota will publish its final sales results for 2011 later this month but has projected sales of 7.9 million in 2011, down about 6 percent from a year earlier.
The tabulation of global auto sales is not without controversy. Rankings are mostly about bragging rights, but there has been a long-running and robust debate over how to account for vehicles sold through affiliates.
The sales figures released by GM, which was the largest automaker until 2008 when Toyota took its place, include vehicles sold through its joint ventures in China. Some analysts extract those sales from GM's results.
Depending on how the results are tallied, Toyota may have finished the year in third place. However, Toyota would fall to fourth place behind Renault SA (RENA.PA) and its partner Nissan Motor Co (7201.T) if the alliance's sales through Russia's AvtoVAZ (AVAZ.MM) are included.
Including AvtoVAZ, Renault-Nissan sold 8.03 million cars worldwide last year. This includes the 638,000 cars sold by AvtoVAZ, in which Renault owns a minority 25 percent.
The International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers, a global trade group based in France, has not yet released its annual ranking of automakers by production.
TOYOTA MOUNTS COMEBACK
Toyota's 2011 worldwide sales tally included listed subsidiaries Daihatsu Motors Co (7262.T) and Hino Motors Ltd (7205.T).
Toyota's sales were hurt by a series of disasters that triggered auto parts shortages and curtailed its vehicle production last year.
But now Toyota is ramping up production to rebuild depleted inventory and will add output capacity in emerging markets such as Brazil and China this year. However, analysts said it also faced stiffer competition as rivals step up their game.
"Toyota's biggest problem is that even without the natural disasters, its sales weren't exactly growing," JP Morgan auto analyst Kohei Takahashi said.
"The ranking is not that important, but they need a convincing strategy to boost their sales," he said, adding that Toyota was behind rivals such as Nissan in rolling out small cars for emerging markets.
Toyota has lagged the sharper sales growth at rivals such as Nissan and Hyundai Motor Co (005380.KS) because of a relatively slow push into emerging markets as it scrambled to meet runaway demand in mature markets in the past decade.
In a bid to catch up, Toyota is adding factories in Brazil, China, Thailand and elsewhere, aiming to sell half its cars in emerging markets by 2015, up from around 40 percent now.
South Korean sister carmakers Hyundai Motor Co (005380.KS) and its 34 percent owned Kia Motors Corp (000270.KS) racked up total sales of 6.53 million last year.
(Reporting by Deepa Seetharaman in Detroit, Chang-Ran Kim in Tokyo; Editing by Mark Bendeich)
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120120/bs_nm/us_gm
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Report: Swede blames Mossad for Bangkok arrest (AP)
STOCKHOLM ? A Lebanese-Swedish man detained in a terror probe in Thailand has told a Swedish newspaper that he's innocent and blamed Israel's Mossad spy agency for his arrest.
The tabloid Aftonbladet on Friday said it spoke to 47-year-old Atris Hussein in a Bangkok prison where he's being held on allegations of illegally possessing explosive materials.
Hussein was quoted as saying he is "100 percent innocent" and that "much of the material the police found in my warehouse had been placed there, probably by the Israeli security service Mossad."
Thai police seized more than 8,800 pounds (4,000 kilograms) of urea fertilizer and several gallons of liquid ammonium nitrate at the warehouse in Samut Sakhon, on the western outskirts of Thai capital Bangkok, according to police and media reports.
Police have said Hussein was storing the explosive materials in Bangkok before shipping them to another destination.
His arrest last week was linked to United States and Israeli warnings of a possible terror threat in Bangkok, coming during heightened tension over U.S. and Israeli responses to the prospect that Iran is moving ahead with its nuclear program.
Thai authorities were caught off-guard by the U.S. announcement, hastily revealing they had detained a Swedish national of Lebanese origin with alleged links to pro-Iranian Hezbollah militants.
Hussein told Aftonbladet that one evening he was taken from the Thai prison to a house where he was interrogated by three men "who obviously were from Mossad." He didn't specify why he thought so.
Asked why the Israeli agency would be going after him, he said: "I am a Shia Muslim but I don't belong to Hezbollah. But I live in an area outside Beirut where they are strong.
"I also have sympathies on the left and voted for the (left-leaning) Social Democrats when I lived in Sweden. Maybe that made me look suspicious in the Mossad's eyes."
Hussein said he moved to Sweden in 1989 and became a Swedish citizen five years later. He said he worked in the country as a hairdresser before moving back to Lebanon in 2005.
He told the newspaper he is involved in a business exporting a variety of goods from Thailand to other countries, including Lebanon. The products include fans, copy machine paper and frozen gel packs used for pain relief, he said.
"There is ammonium in these packs. That's all there is to it. We never traded with fertilizer. It must have been placed there by someone, probably Mossad," Hussein said.
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Saturday, January 21, 2012
Pakistani government bows to top court's demand (AP)
ISLAMABAD ? Pakistan's government on Thursday bowed to a long-standing Supreme Court demand to debate whether the president enjoys immunity from a past corruption case, a concession that could help defuse a crisis threatening the U.S.-backed administration.
The government agreed to the demand after the court threatened Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani with contempt charges for failing to reopen a decade-old case against his boss, President Asif Ali Zardari, and forced the premier to make a rare appearance before the judges.
The court gave Gilani's attorney two weeks to prepare his argument. The period could further reduce heightened tension between the Supreme Court and the beleaguered government, which is also battling the judges and the powerful army over a secret memo sent to Washington last year seeking help in stopping a supposed military coup.
Speculation has been rampant that the combined assault could cause the government's downfall by forcing it to accept calls for early elections. But the government may be heartened by the Supreme Court's decision not to make any immediate moves to hold Gilani in contempt, a charge that could land him in prison for up to six months and disqualify him from holding office.
The government has long defied a 2009 Supreme Court order to write a letter to Swiss authorities asking them to reopen a corruption case against Zardari that dates back to the 1990s, claiming he enjoys immunity from prosecution while in office.
It has also ignored a demand to go before the court to argue the immunity claim, probably because members of the ruling party viewed the court's actions as a partisan campaign to take down Zardari, who has clashed with Supreme Court Chief Justice Mohammad Iftikhar Chaudhry.
Gilani delivered a nearly 10-minute speech Thursday to the seven-judge bench, which did not include Chaudhry. The prime minister expressed respect for the court and said he never intended to "ridicule" the judges. He said it was his belief that Zardari "has complete immunity inside and outside the country."
Gilani's lawyer, Aitzaz Ahsan, did most of the talking for the prime minister during the session and agreed to formally argue for the president's immunity before the judges when the hearing resumes on Feb. 1.
"I will bow to the court order and will also speak on immunity to satisfy the court that the president has complete immunity," Ahsan told reporters.
Security was especially tight during the court session, which was also attended by several of Gilani's ministers and coalition partners. Police lined the roads in front of the Supreme Court and two helicopters hovered over the building during the hearing.
Supporters and opponents of the government competed for attention outside the court. A group of roughly a dozen women chanted, "Long live Zardari!" while several dozen lawyers shouted slogans in favor of the court chief justice and against the president.
Zardari and his late wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, were found guilty in absentia in a Swiss court in 2003 of laundering millions of dollars in kickbacks from Swiss companies when they were in government.
They appealed, and Swiss authorities abandoned the case in 2008 at the request of the Pakistani government. The case was among thousands dropped as a result of an amnesty that allowed Bhutto to return from exile and run for election in 2008. She was assassinated in 2007 during the campaign.
The Supreme Court declared the amnesty unconstitutional in 2009, leaving those covered by it vulnerable to prosecution.
Zardari said recently that the government would never send the letter to the Swiss reopening the case because it would dishonor Bhutto.
Many legal experts agree that Zardari does enjoy immunity from the Swiss corruption case while in office, but the judges gave no indication Thursday of where they stood.
The government is also at locked in bitter conflict with the army over the secret memo scandal. The army was outraged by the memo, which was allegedly sent by the government, and pushed the Supreme Court to set up a commission to investigate. The government has denied any connection to the memo and opposed the commission, saying the matter was already being probed by the parliament.
Some observers have speculated the army is working behind the scenes with the Supreme Court to oust the government. But others believe the judges are acting independently because of the enmity between Zardari and the chief justice and the frustration with the government's refusal to obey court orders.
Since Pakistan was founded in 1947, no civilian government has ever completed a full five-year term before being toppled by a military coup, or forced to call early elections. There have been three coups over that period. A fourth coup is considered unlikely, but the government may call early elections to counter the building political pressure.
___
Associated Press writer Sebastian Abbot contributed to this report.
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First video of Fukushima reactor
20 January 2012
Last updated at 07:11 ET
Video of the inside of Number 2 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant - video courtesy of Tepco
The first footage from inside one of Japan's tsunami-hit nuclear reactors at Fukushima has been released by the stricken plant's operator.
Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) inserted an endoscope camera in Number 2 reactor to examine the interior.
Thursday's probe aimed to get details such as the true level of cooling water and temperature inside the vessel.
The six-reactor Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was badly damaged by the 11 March earthquake and tsunami.
Last month it was announced that the nuclear reactors had finally been stabilised and reached a state of "cold shutdown".
This occurs when the water that cools nuclear fuel rods remains below boiling point, meaning that the fuel cannot reheat.
Radiation distorted footageThe video probe, just 8.5 mm in diameter according to one report, was inserted into the vessel to ascertain reactor conditions, particularly the level of cooling water and the temperature.
Some of the footage was distorted because of the levels of radiation, but officials say no major ruptures caused by the earthquake have been spotted.
"The visual artefacts provoked by the high level of radiation and other leaks inside are a viewing obstacle, but nevertheless the images are of relatively good quality in some areas," Tepco official Junichi Matsumoto is quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency.
Tepco also said that experts were still trying to identify all the parts that were shown in the video.
The probe failed to find the water surface, which indicates that it sat at lower than expected levels and raised questions about the accuracy of current water monitors.
But the probe confirmed that the temperature inside the reactor was in line with the temperature gauge outside the container.
The information from the probe "will help us keep the reactor stable and solve problems," Ms Matsumoto is quoted by Reuters as saying.
Reports say that Tepco now hopes to use the endoscope to look inside two other stricken reactors but officials say radiation levels would have to decrease before that can happen.
A 20km (12m) exclusion zone remains in place around the plant. The government says it will take decades to dismantle the plant completely.
More than 80,000 people had to leave the area. Radiation levels in some places remain too high for them to return home.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/world-asia-16649030
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Friday, January 20, 2012
Video: Obama pushes tourism
Miracle baby born from single sperm
An Ohio man who made no sperm and his wife, who had few eggs, have become parents thanks to a first-ever Cleveland Clinic case in which a single sperm that was frozen and injected into an egg resulted in pregnancy. Here, Jason and Jennifer Schiraldi pose with Kenley,9 months.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/46062924#46062924
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Analysis: Nigeria strife highlights Africa investment risks (Reuters)
LONDON (Reuters) ? Nigeria's recent explosion of violent political unrest is damaging the economy and forcing investors to reassess their optimism over the short-term returns available there and elsewhere in Africa.
Stock and bond investors started looking seriously at sub-Saharan Africa after 2005 when debt forgiveness deals paved the way for growth and reform across the continent. But anyone seeking a killing from the hottest investment pitch of the time will have been disappointed.
Frontier market investors pumped $1.3 billion into African equity funds in 2010 excluding South Africa, EPFR says, up 10-fold from 2005. Such markets are a rung below emerging markets in terms of liquidity, size and transparency, but promise strong returns.
Asset managers Renaissance estimate Nigeria -- two-thirds of MSCI's frontier Africa equity index and almost a tenth of the broader frontier index -- took in half this amount, boosted by deep banking reforms and smooth 2011 elections expected to unleash infrastructure improvements.
The country was also included by Goldman Sachs in a group of eleven most promising emerging economies after the BRICs.
Yet a dollar invested five years ago in MSCI's Africa frontier equity index, comprising Nigeria, Kenya, Mauritius and Tunisia, would have lost 23 cents, Thomson Reuters data shows. In Nigeria, the loss is 36 cents. An investor in mainstream emerging equities would have made a 22 cent profit.
"If you go back to 2006 expectations of frontier markets were very very high, that's the difference between then and now," said Andrew Brudenell, who helps manage $180 million in frontier stocks at HSBC Global Asset Management. "What you have now are very low expectations and very low valuations."
In Nigeria, key reforms to unlock the economy's potential, have been slow, with this month's removal of the $8 billion petrol subsidy the first major step since President Goodluck Jonathan took office last April.
Worse, recent bombings directed at Christians followed by strikes against the ending of fuel subsidies, have shattered a fragile veneer of stability, with the strikes estimated to have cost sub-Saharan Africa's second-largest economy more than $600 million a day.
Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka even predicts the nation is headed for civil war.
After last year's debt default in Ivory Coast, Tunisia's turmoil and currency collapses in Kenya and Uganda, such developments revive Africa's reputation as a high-risk play for only the most adventurous investors.
"In the current risk off environment, frontier markets are not a short-term story," said Maria Gratsova, an analyst at Citi. "They are small and illiquid and that's not a good place to be when markets are extremely volatile as in past years."
Gratsova is worried by Nigeria's increasingly violent sectarianism but remains bullish on it and most frontier markets, saying the woes are reflected in stock valuations some 20 percent below those of emerging markets.
"At this price you are getting access to population growth and GDP growth. It's not a high price to pay," Gratsova said.
RISKS IN THE PRICE
There is no guarantee that faster growth will lead to better equity performance -- stocks in India and China have done poorly in recent years despite rapid growth rates.
But many argue Africa's risks are already in the price. Shares trade at an average price-earnings ratio of 7 times or less, versus over 9 times for emerging markets, says Sven Richter, head of frontier markets at Renaissance Asset Managers.
"That's a significant risk premium," Richter says. "I don't expect Africa to be valued on par with emerging markets but over time this premium will reduce. A PE (ratio) of 10 will still capture some risk premium."
Local African bonds also carry a bigger yield premium to hard currency counterparts than is common elsewhere. Daniel Broby, CIO at Silk Invest, a frontier markets focused fund, says the pickup is 200-300 basis points or more.
Ghana's 10-year dollar bond for instance yields 6.5 percent, while 10-year cedi-denominated debt pays over 15 percent.
"Political risk is part of the scenario in Africa but the risk is mispriced," Broby says, noting that events in one country do not tend to have a fallout elsewhere.
Buyers of African dollar debt haven't fared too badly. Nigeria's sovereign bonds returned 5 percent last year and has barely budged despite the turmoil. Bonds from the Republic of Congo and Seychelles returned 14-16 percent in 2011.
LONG TERM
Investors insist long-term returns will be worth the pain. Incomes are rising across Africa, implying poor penetration levels for all goods and services from telecoms to transport, will rise if reforms work.
Up to 40 percent of Nigerian firms' costs come from running power generators to cover for electricity shortages, analysts say, a bottleneck which could be addressed were fuel subsidies redirected into power infrastructure.
And even within poorly performing markets, there are gains to be won. Brudenell of HSBC for instance invested in consumer staples such as Guinness Nigeria which rose 18 percent last year, bucking an index loss of 24 percent.
"That shows there are some very good quality companies in frontier markets that are doing well in balance sheet and cash generation point of view," he said.
(Additional reporting by Carolyn Cohn; editing by Ron Askew)
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